It was around this time last year that reporters swarmed Lower Manhattan to cover Donald Trump’s arraignment for his alleged role in the 2016 hush money payout to porn star Stephanie Clifford (a.k.a. Stormy Daniels). The first-come-first-serve approach to accessing the proceedings made for some chaos, with journalists—or professional line-sitters that some outlets had hired—queuing up more than 20 hours early to secure a seat in the courtroom. On Monday, a mass of media will again converge outside the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse, as Trump’s hush money trial—the first, and likely only, before the presidential election—kicks off with jury selection. But this time around will be a more orderly experience for those covering it. At least, that’s the hope.
For months now, journalists and media lawyers have been working with court officials behind the scenes to streamline the process and make sure the press corps is getting as much access as possible to this historic trial, especially given, in accordance with New York law, video cameras will not be allowed in the courtroom. About 20 news organizations—including The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN, ABC, and NBC—are part of a coalition represented by Jeremy Chase and Rob Balin, of Davis Wright Tremaine. The lawyers, who also represented media coalitions in the cases of Harvey Weinstein and Sam Bankman-Fried, have spent the past year or so speaking with journalists and in-house counsel for the news outlets and translating their concerns—everything from bathroom breaks and lunches to trial exhibits—into actionable items to present to court administrators. In that time, the state court system hired a new director of communications, Al Baker, formerly the head of media relations for NYPD and, before that, a longtime journalist. I’m told he’s empowered the press to come up with creative ideas to improve the process.
One of the biggest developments is a reserved-seating chart that the press worked with Baker to organize. It guarantees 58 news organizations a seat in the courtroom, so reporters won’t have to camp out overnight or line up at dawn for the next six or so weeks. (To remain on the list, a news organization needs to have at least one reporter at the trial nearly every day.) Law360 reporter Frank G. Runyeon, who’d been speaking for months with Baker about the best and fairest way to do this, plotted the chart after going to Justice Juan Merchan’s courtroom and sketching it out in his notebook. “Just to make sure that when we were talking about numbers, and Al was talking about how many seats they can fit for the press, we had common ground, common facts,” Runyeon told me. “Because you’re not normally counting seats at that level.”
The seating chart got a dry run at a hearing on March 25, and “it was pretty painless compared to the other times, so everyone is just hoping that it will stick,” says New York Daily News courts reporter Molly Crane-Newman. Still, she’s holding her breath. “I’ll believe it when I see it. It all seems well and good and ironed out, but I don’t know if they are underestimating—maybe there will be a surge of other reporters who are only jumping in now and will be demanding a seat in the courtroom once it all gets started.”
The death of O.J. Simpson this week has revived memories of another “Trial of the Century,” a murder case against a football legend that riveted the nation and fueled a media spectacle unlike any before it. The trial of a former president, who has pleaded not guilty to the 34 charges against him for falsifying business records, will surely be one of the most closely followed cases of this generation (especially as Trump simultaneously runs for president). But whereas millions of Americans tuned in to every legal twist and turn of the Simpson trial, the lack of cameras for Trump’s proceedings puts an even greater responsibility on the news media to inform the public about what’s actually happening inside the courtroom.
The first two or so weeks of the trial will be jury selection when Merchan’s courtroom will be packed with prospective jurors. During that time, there won’t be enough room for the full press corps; instead, the press will have a rotating pool of six reporters (and a sketch artist) in the main courtroom, and the remaining reporters on the reserved list will be in the overflow room. Journalists have also organized among themselves to form other pools, including the TV entities—CNN, NBC, ABC, etc.—who will have one station within the pen on the 15th floor (where Merchan’s courtroom is) that is operated by a different crew each week. There will also be a pool of journalists in the hallway, where Trump has been known to make spontaneous utterances. “If there’s any case that’s a good test case for pushing for good access and transparency, I feel at least that it’s this one,” said Mike Sisak, who covers law enforcement and courts for the Associated Press.
There are other concerns aside from seating arrangements, such as access to court records. “The New York state court system is a labyrinth,” said Runyeon, who recently wrote about the arcane and secretive nature of New York’s criminal court, which does not have a digital court docket system. The official record “all boils down to what ends up in a brown accordion folder in the clerk’s office,” Runyeon told me. “This is the first trial of a former president—and, I believe, a current presidential candidate—and we are doing this in a way that looks like we live in the 1950’s,” he notes. Trial transcripts, which are not publicly available for free under the court’s system, are also an issue. Court stenographers own their work and have different rates depending on the turnaround time. While daily transcripts—distributed the morning after a trial day—have a set rate ($5.50–6.50 per page), immediate transcripts—received the evening of the day’s proceeding—are less clearly priced, so Chase and Balin have been negotiating with the stenographers. “It seems that the court reporters have significantly more bargaining power for these type of transcripts because the rules are silent on immediate transcripts,” Chase recently wrote in an email to the coalition obtained by Vanity Fair.
With so many conversations going on—between the coalition and court officials, between journalists outside the coalition and court officials—“even the process of trying to improve the process is not very smooth,” as one court reporter put it. “An elaborate system has been built and we will see how this goes. I don’t know what to expect,” said Runyeon. “But there’s been an ongoing dialogue to try and get this right, and honestly what this is really about is getting the most news out to the American voting public as fast as possible.”
“On the one hand, it’s just like any other case, any other day at court. You’ve got a perp. You’ve got a prosecutor. You’ve got a defense team that will do whatever they can to win. This is a story we’ve all written a thousand times, and we’re ready,” another court reporter told me. “On the other hand, it’s the fucking Thunderdome. This is the first time in US history that an ex-president has faced a criminal trial. The court administration has done a great job with logistics thus far, but it’s still going to be a physical and mental marathon for what, six weeks? Two months?”